But if we cut corners, dropping to a certain less-than-accurate standard, maybe we could do it?
Then we'd be faced with the equivalent of the conundrum that Richard Dawkins loves to point out: The only reason we find it so easy to justify things like hunting animals for sport, is that all the close intermediates between us and the other primates have been lost in the flow of history. If we had true neanderthals and australopithecans walking around talking to us in limited language, wouldn't it make us all a lot more conscious of the connection between our ability to suffer, and that of other animals?
We may at some point (and perhaps we are getting close) be creating these intermediates from scratch, and setting them loose around us. Possibly even by accident. Will they always be seen as simulated life, because that chain of inheritance is broken? Or will they cause so much confusion that we start valuing artificially lifelike constructions that show intelligence over living things that don't?
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Then we'd be faced with the equivalent of the conundrum that Richard Dawkins loves to point out: The only reason we find it so easy to justify things like hunting animals for sport, is that all the close intermediates between us and the other primates have been lost in the flow of history. If we had true neanderthals and australopithecans walking around talking to us in limited language, wouldn't it make us all a lot more conscious of the connection between our ability to suffer, and that of other animals?
We may at some point (and perhaps we are getting close) be creating these intermediates from scratch, and setting them loose around us. Possibly even by accident. Will they always be seen as simulated life, because that chain of inheritance is broken? Or will they cause so much confusion that we start valuing artificially lifelike constructions that show intelligence over living things that don't?